


Nighthawk

by pringlesaremydivision



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Wishing for Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7544455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision/pseuds/pringlesaremydivision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night — an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future — that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Some nights, Rhett lets himself dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nighthawk

**Author's Note:**

> Another entry for the [Rhink Summer Ficathon](https://rhinksummerficathon2k16.tumblr.com/), this time for the prompt [emotions people feel but can't explain](http://heatgeneratingtechniques.tumblr.com/post/144783184069/the-signs-as-emotions-people-feel-but-cant).

He’s able to push it away most of the time, keeping his mind busied at work with meetings and planning sessions and tapings, at home with homework questions and telling stories and the sound of Jessie’s warm, throaty laugh. Maybe he stares a little too long during some episodes, lets his touch linger more than would strictly be considered friendly, but after all, they’ve known each other so long they’re basically two halves of one whole. The usual rules don’t apply. Maybe that’s the problem. For them, the usual rules have never applied.

That’s what Rhett tells himself in the dark, when the kids have gone to bed and Jessie’s breathing has settled deep and even, her small body curled towards him even in sleep. Rhett stares at the ceiling, watches the play of lights from the cars outside bouncing off the mirrored surface of the closet opposite the big canopy bed they share. He knows if he looked in the mirror he’d see the shadowy outlines of their bodies, the picture-perfect intimacy of a husband and wife. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth.

He loves his wife and his boys, loves them in the bone-deep, protective, uncomplicated way a man should love his family, and most of the time, it’s enough. He knows how lucky he is; knows how much he would stand to lose if— _if_. So he ignores it, buries it, pretends what he feels is no more than friendship, stronger than blood, deeper than the roots of the shady pines and oaks that were the backdrop to so much of their shared childhood. He has so much; he would be selfish to want more.

Because there’s no question about it—it is _more_ that he wants. It isn’t _instead_ ; he doesn’t want to replace one with the other. He loves them both too fiercely for that. And no matter how much they twist and turn and flout convention, there are some things that are still off-limits.

But sometimes, in the dark, after everyone else is sleeping the untroubled sleep of minds occupied with exactly what they should be, no more and no less, Rhett opens the gates of his own mind and allows the thoughts he usually guards against so strictly to flutter in, to plant their feet and stay awhile. One hand on his bare stomach, the other behind his head, Rhett lets himself imagine.

Dark hair and bright eyes, the most familiar face Rhett knows, more familiar than his children’s faces, both of them growing up so quickly it’s like they’re different people every time Rhett looks. That high giggle, boyish still even though they haven’t been boys for decades, the sound making Rhett’s chest swell with pride every time he causes it. The broad sweep of his shoulders, the sinew of his arms, the flat plane of his chest and stomach, all of it the diametric opposite of the soft, slight woman beside him. And yet, for all their differences, there is so much the two of them share, looks and temperament alike—so much that it sometimes makes Rhett question himself.

He wants them both, not _instead of_ but _along with_ ; wants to wrap his arms around them and steal kisses from each of them in turn; wants to feel the press of their bodies against his, curled up together in this California king bed. He wants the reflection in the mirror to show the three of them, tangled together, perfect and complete.

In the daylight, when he wakes, his wife and kids will be enough again, and if that yearning ache raises its unruly head he will push it back down, tuck it behind the love for his family and the joy of their enduring friendship, stronger somehow now than it ever has been. There is room for it there; a pocket in his chest, carved out of muscle, caged in by bone. With the sunrise, the gates will swing closed again, and Rhett will greet him with a casual “mornin’, brother,” just like always, and nothing will change, because nothing can change. 

Tonight, though, he falls asleep to the thought of another brunet lying on the other side of him, sleep-mussed hair and a soft smile on his parted lips, the warm masculine scent of his skin as intoxicating as any of Jessie’s sweetest perfumes. Tonight, behind closed eyes, he allows himself to dream.


End file.
